Oxy High Performance Meet

Water Jump at Occidental College

             The USATF High Performance Meet sure lived up to its name! It was like a mini Olympic Trials and was a great event. It makes me wish we had more meets like this in the U.S. for post-collegiate athletes. We have the resources (i.e. collegiate tracks) but just need someone wanting to host, then the athletes to get on board and compete at these events. The college track meets like Mt. SAC, Payton Jordan, etc. are great but they are early in the season and after April there are virtually no meets for an elite athlete to compete at with college teams competing at their Conference, Regional and National track meets. But I am getting off topic.

This is how I get ready. Braided hair with "lightning bolt" and some colorful nails!

                Friday night I started the night off with the women’s 3k steeple. I was feeling really good and wanted to go for it. The gun went off and for once I got a great start. I was aggressive off the line and found myself in the front. I was actually a little surprised that more women were not running a faster pace because I figured we all had the same goal in mind. Go under 9:55 and secure a spot in the Olympic Trials.

                I was able to see all my hurdles and was feeling very smooth over them. My mind was focused and I was confident. I never let negative thoughts creep into my mind and the entire race I told myself I was going to get my goal.

       
          The Oxy track was a bit different than what I am used to in a steeple. It has very large curves so the starting line is back farther near the start of the back stretch. This makes for splits I am not used to hearing each lap. I had a time goal in mind and on paper wrote down splits to get me to 9:51. I figured this would be a time that should win this heat. The winner of this heat ended up running 9:52. Oh how I wish it was as easy as simply writing down splits to be able to execute them in a race. Since the splits on this track would be different than what I am used to seeing I wanted to run off feel. I was feeling really good. Five laps in, I was feeling really good. Then I had a very bad water jump. I pretty much stopped in the water and after that my legs loaded up a bit and I struggled on the rest of my jumps. However in my mind I was still focused and confident I could come back.

                Then I crossed the line and saw 10:03…what? How did that happen? It still was a great effort and race, my second fastest steeple of my life, but I was bummed. I was so focused, so prepared and felt so good. How could I have let the perfect opportunity pass me by without getting my mark? I know I have said this time and time again but I struggle with my water jumps and I don’t know why. Well I know what I am doing wrong, I know what I need to do differently but every time I re-watch my races I am left scratching my head wondering why something so simple can cause me such grief? I was running under 9:55 pace on the laps but was losing 2+ seconds per lap on inefficient water jumps and energy expenditure trying to get back up to speed.

                And now I am left leaving it down to one more track meet at the Portland Track Festival for me to chase my mark. I am hoping with it being an Olympic year there will be a competitive women’s steeple field but I am also expecting it to not be this way. I am prepared to run alone and try to hit my splits. I know this is not the easiest thing to do but I have left myself with no choice. I guess I just like to make it hard on myself, to keep myself focused and working hard. That’s just what I keep telling myself.

                Right now I am ranked 26^th in the U.S.A. for the women’s 3k steeple. This includes marks from last year and there are a few women I am not sure if they will even race. But I can only assume that they will since it is the Olympic Trials after all. 25^th place is .04 seconds ahead of me and 24^th about a second. It would be an understatement to say it is a tight field. In the 3k steeple they only take 24 women. They run two heats of 12 in the prelim and one heat of 14 in the final. How I wish they would run two heats of 14 in the prelim and one heat of 12 in the final…but I knew how the game worked before the season even started and so it is up to me to secure my spot.

                I have three weeks to prepare. Tomorrow I am running a road race in Seattle. It seemed like a great idea a week ago but after running an easy 4 miles on the beach this morning my body is feeling trashed from Friday’s race. After racing Friday night, sleeping five hours, then traveling all day Saturday, my goal is just to run a good effort on Sunday and not put myself in the hole. But who knows, maybe I will surprise myself tomorrow. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Saturday morning going for an easy run on the beach.

QUICK UPDATE:

             I wanted to sleep as much as possible so got up Sunday morning a little later than I normally would before a race. I ate an Oatmeal Harvest Energy PowerBar and drank some Gatorade Prime and was ready to go. My warm up was rough and running an 8 minute mile felt tough. I did an uptempo three minute run 30 minutes before the start and was barely able to go 5:45-50 pace. At first I questioned why I was doing the race then the whole reason for the race sunk in. The race is a fundraiser for JDRF, "the largest nongovernmental funder of research to cure, treat and prevent type 1 diabetes." I was a little sleep deprived but a very healthy and strong individual. With thankfulness in mind I was ready to race and have some fun.

            When the gun went off my body knew what to do. I felt good. The race went smoothly but I started getting a bit tired with two miles to go. Mile 3 to mile 4 the lead woman put a bit of a gap on me but by 3/4 of a mile to go I managed to rally back and was back with her. However, she put on another move and I could not match it. I glanced back (I know, I know, I should never look back) and saw that I had second place secured. I ran in as fast I could and was very pleased to have finished 2nd overall in 27:08 for 8k, seven seconds faster than last year! To celebrate I took Levi and my brother Josh out shopping with my new Nordstrom gift card I got for placing in the top five. It was definitely a busy but wonderful weekend!

Post Beat the Bridge 8k Race. Josh looks tired :) 

Video courtesy of RunnerSpace:

Video courtesy FloTrack:
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Oregon Twilight Meet

(Start of the women's 3k steeple)

            This weekend I traveled down to Track Town USA to compete at the University of Oregon’s Twilight meet. This was the first track meet of the year where I did not have to go to the airport and fly to my destination. I could finally bring whatever liquids and number of bags I wanted! What freedom. Instead of getting on board a Boeing 737 I hopped aboard a Red Chrysler minivan with three other male pole vaulters and two pole bags strapped to the roof and made the journey down to Eugene, OR.                 

            Traveling with three male vaulters makes for a fun and very interesting trip. Their taste in music was excellent and the conversations very humorous. I listened quietly as they discussed ways to pick up other girl vaulters. Apparently if you forget to bring straps to fasten your pole bags to your vehicle, seat belts or pieces of clothing work just fine.  Pants work pretty well so if you have a pretty girl riding with you, you can conveniently forget your straps and then you both must take off your pants so the poles can stay on the car. Or you can go one step further and tell the female that bras are the sturdiest material for doing this.

                The ride down was uneventful and I was able to get a nice nap in since the van provided plenty of leg room. Traffic was terrible especially near Portland but traveling with friends makes it go by faster and not matter as much especially since I did not have to drive. Ryan did the bulk of the driving which was awesome. I did discover a couple of interesting facts on this trip, guys like to have dance parties in mini vans, if you are Italian you can easily roll your “r’s,” the only thing slowing food to the stomach is the esophagus, pushing down the driver’s knee is an effective way to go faster, Goodwill is where you go for great deals on used underwear and The Avengers is a bad ass movie.  Had I traveled by air or alone I would have missed out on all this new found knowledge.

(Traffic...)

                We arrived at our cheap hotel Friday evening and headed out to Red Robin for some burgers, endless fries, and bottomless root beer floats. Without even trying, this is becoming a pre-meet routine of ours. Levi loves Red Robin and being Red Robin “Royalty” we must continue to make an appearance lest a fry go to waste.

(While we waited for our table the guys tried their skills with the claw.)

      After dinner Scott treated us to a night at the movies and we headed out to watch The Avengers. It was a good thing we bought tickets before dinner or it would have been sold out. We arrived early so we could all sit together and strategize our plan of action for doing so. Once in the theater you don’t mess around looking for the perfect seat, go to the top and grab the first four you see. This plan worked out perfectly. The movie was very entertaining and I would definitely watch it again. Afterwards the guys were pumped and ready to grab and throw cars across the interstate. Back at the hotel I was able to fall right asleep but I don’t know if the guys were that lucky with visions of Hulk and Thor raging in their heads.

(Coming out of the water jump)

(Levi vaulting at the Oregon Twilight)

MEET DAY

                The morning of the meet I went out for an easy two mile shake out and found myself being cheered on by a group of small children as I ran past. People were saying hello and were very friendly. It was a little chilly, in comparison to the California weather I have been racing in, but good for running at roughly 50 degrees. There was a bit of a wind and I was hoping it would die down for my race then pick back up for the vaulters.

                I ate lunch around 2:30pm but for some reason my food was not digesting very well and I found myself on my warm up at 5:00pm with a very heavy stomach. When it came time to race I felt alright but still had a full stomach. As the gun went off I got out to a decent start and tried to stay relaxed. I was able to see all of the hurdles as this race strung out pretty early. I knew this going in and wanted this to happen so I could practice my hurdle technique but with the head wind I was finding myself wishing for a pack to run in.

                I came through 1800m around 6:01 which is perfect except I wasn’t feeling that great. Mentally I was having trouble pushing into that next gear and physically my legs did not want to jump. I think all of the travel and racing the past three weeks had caught up to me. When I crossed the line the clock read 10:07. I was a little bummed at first then realized this tied the second fastest time I had ever run and last year it would have been a PR for me. I am moving in the right direction and for this to be my “not so hot race” is encouraging.

                I originally was not planning on racing the Twilight meet but decided it would be a good opportunity to get some practice in and see what I could do when I could see the hurdles. I tried to be confident and focused the week of the race but to be honest, I could tell my body was a bit tired and probably not in prime condition to go for another PR. But this race made me very hungry for the next and this is what happened leading up to my PR at Stanford. This week I added in some cross training on the spin bike to give my legs a break from the pounding but while increasing my aerobic volume. I had two solid workouts and feel ready for my race next Friday night. I will be racing at the USATF Oxy High Performance Track Meet against a stacked women’s field in the steeple. As FloTrack stated, this meet is going to be like a mini Olympic Trials and I couldn’t be more excited to have the opportunity to race.

Race Video courtesy of RunnerSpace:

Breaking a Barrier

            Wow the month of April flew by! I think I was at home for one weekend the entire month! The first weekend I was at Stanford where I opened up my outdoor season with a 5k after spending the entire month of March cross-training. It felt good to be back running again. Nine days later I was back at the airport and on my way to Walnut, CA for the Mt. SAC relays. I ran my first steeple chase of the year in 10:09. This was the fastest time I had ever opened a season with but far from my goal but that was o.k. I needed to feel the race out again and get used to all those barriers! After being home for five days I found myself back on a plane and heading to Palo Alto, CA to race at the Payton Jordan Invitational at Stanford.

            After Mt. SAC I analyzed my race and wrote down things I could improve on. I felt I underperformed and was ready to make my next race better. The week leading up to Payton Jordan I was very focused yet relaxed. I had the confidence to know I could run a PR and the determination to do it.

            When race day finally came I felt very happy. Levi was at the same meet and traveling together makes it even more fun for me because every track trip we go to together is like a mini vacation. Before the race I wrote down my goal time but I also wrote down where I wanted to be with 3 laps to go. My goal was to see the clock at 6 minutes with 1200m remaining. I told myself to get to that point by being relaxed and not going out too hard. After that I wanted to bring each lap down by 1 second and get the A standard for the Trials. I knew this would be a tough task as those last three laps of a steeple can be brutal. But I was ready for this.

            The race took off at a fast pace, which was to be expected on an Olympic year in a stacked field. I hung out near the back trying to be as relaxed as possible. As I came through the finish line with three laps to go I looked at the clock and watched it tick off 6:00. Perfect. Now I had to go for it. I kept moving up through the field the last 3 laps but I don’t remember my placing at all. As I watched my race on Flotrack a couple days later I was surprised where I was. I think I was so focused during the race I was oblivious to everything else. That was fine for this race but in the future I also need to be able to focus on my jumps, pace AND the competition all at once so I don’t find myself with gaps that are too big to cover.  

            The last three laps I noticed some of the other women around me were starting to struggle. I was attacking the hurdles and found myself getting slowed by those around me. John yelled for me to get off the rail and go around, which I did for that one hurdle, but I probably should have went wider on more hurdles and the water jump. I may have run slightly farther but it would have been quicker than trying to navigate in the pack.

            My last water jump I felt my leg give a little as I came out. All that jumping was getting my legs a little tired but I sprinted for all I was worth and crossed the line in 9:59.  This was a new PR and my next goal in line for my season. For Mt. SAC I was just going to race and re-awaken my “steepler” self. For Payton Jordan my first goal was to go under 10:00. My water jumps were still slowing me down as I landed deep and did not push off the barrier so without getting any fitter I know I can take more time off.  My next goal is to go under 9:55 and I will get that chance this weekend as I travel down to the University of Oregon for their Twilight meet Saturday evening.

Women's 3k Steeple courtesy of Flotrack:

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